Why bother?

[Kanth]

I've been thinking about going to college. I want to make more money is the reason.

Now I'm looking at the type of sacrifices I'll have to make to go to college, money, student loans part time work, lifestyle change,  possibly selling my car etc.

Here's what I expect when I get out of college.

I make x amount of dollars a year now and I get taxed x amount of dollars.

I get a better job after suffering thru college for a few years and I make x amount of dollars more BUT, I now owe x amount MORE for taxes..am I getting more out of anything for the more taxes I'm paying?? NOPE So, even tho I am not taking more i have to give more simply because I've paid both my money and my time and busted my bellybutton to get thru more education.

Why should I bother?

In the end it sounds alot like a nice charity program, pay a huge sum in time and money to go thru college and get to pay more ever after that and get less than what I was getting before I made this choice.

Can anyone tell me why this would be a good decision?


recently there was a powerball winner he won somehing like 300 million dollars...after taxes he got 100 million..  That's alot of money.

Alot of money that they took from him even tho he didn't receive anything more from them.

Why is this? why doesn't everyone just give up and just get welfare and not have to worry about these inequities?

[Mw007]

oh boy....Kanth... Good luck w/ this one... I'm gonna be scared to check this one in a few days.. LOL

[funkedup]

When I was in grad school (heh), for one of my classes we actually worked this problem.  We did it for mechanical engineers with BS, MS, PhD degrees.  For each category we figured the net present value (over a working lifetime of age 18 to age 65) of getting each degree.  We included things like inflation, taxes, tuition, books, etc.  We used national average income levels for people with high school diplomas and for mech. engineers with each type of degree.  Anyways it worked out that the PhD was a better deal than the MS, the MS was better than the BS, and the BS was better than high school diploma only.

This answer is only for mech. engineers attending U of Illinois, and it assumes that engineers' salaries grow at the same rate as the CPI (inflation), and it assumes that tax rates will not change very much.  But it was interesting to see that, on average, there was a long term net benefit to getting the advanced degrees, which made us feel better about our short term economic hardship.  

Of course even if the net present value turned out to be the same for all four cases, I would still have chosen to get more degrees, simply because campus life at a major university is entertaining, at least for a few years.  I met a wide variety of interesting people that I would not have been exposed to if I had just worked in industry the whole time.

[TWOLF]

No one can ever take an education from you and it’s the most valued possession that you will ever have.  I used the military to go to Collage.  If you are young enough you may wish to consider that option.

[funkedup]

So Kanth I think the question is: How much do you make now, and what do you intend to study?  If you know the field you will study, you can look up average income ranges for particular degrees and get some idea of what the benefits will be.  If you choose a lucrative enough field, and are young enough, then those benefits will be enough to overcome the lost income while in school, as well as increased taxes.

[Toad]

Education is a worthwhile goal in and of itself.

Hear me now, believe me later.  

Good luck to you!

[Kanth]

Okay a little more non specific information about me.

As far as the military, I'm a veteran so that's that information.

My most valued possession must pay my bills better than my current high school diploma does.

I am in the technology field, I'm an IT manager, 'I know what I'm doing trust me'

([edit]I'd be studying computer science leaning towards heavy math)

I however deal with alot of crap I don't like (mostly people)

I would like to work in something WAY more technical with WAY less illiterate tards at the helm, possibly in the company of fellow geekage. (geeks usually don't fall into the people catagory when I say I hate people but it depends on the kind of/ and degree of geekosity)

 So, I've been thru the military, been to a school which closed because the owner got alzheimers and ran it into the ground (it was on the news at the time) and was given the choice to have all loans cleared or keep slogging at a different school (i chose all loans cleared which actually didn't pay me back my GIBill monies)

I make decent money now, I'm certainly not rich, but I'd like to be

The drive behind this is deadendedness of job future, dissatisfaction with current work environment and of course money.

 It however seems like there are so many penalties to look fwd to even before I begin getting any monetary benefits it's extremely discouraging.

An education is nice, and education is fun, I want it to pay the bills and improve my situation proportional to the amount of pain it's going to be over the long term and right now (perhaps I am just a jerk) but it looks like crap.

 As I've said before in other posts, I'm a realist, and I understand that in the end I will be making more if someone will hire me with my newly created shiney paper but will that even happen?

Will IT all be outsourced to india?  by the time I'm ready to boldly go, will there be anywhere to go?

When you don't have to really face this it's easy to say, well hell an education is good, go make it happen. But I'm really looking at it, it will effect my life over the next several years and yes I'm ancient now and oh so less tolerant yet still a quick study so there are possibilities.

I'd certainly hate to get there tho and find out that it's no longer worth it and I've wasted my time.

 The alternative? total lifestyle change, go do somethign that pays crap but is kewl...but the cause of most problems in relationships etc? MONEY.. can't escape that fact, I don't want to be miserable either way.

I guess I'm posting this because I actually quit my job making decent money (for good reason) on Feb 26th 2001.  The recession started March 2001 (i am working again now tho for less money) but I'm pretty much thinking my whole decision making process must be screwed so I need more points of view on this.

[J_A_B]

You know Funked, back when I was in school my Economics prof did the exact same sort of study and not surprisingly they made the college degrees look like an automatic path to wealth.  

It didn't take me very long for me to realize why they do this....they have a vested interest in getting students to stay in school....the college makes more money.  That's all they care about IMO, how much money they make.

In practice things aren't always so "automatic" as the college will try to make it seem.  A college degree can often help, but it is NOT an automatic path to increased pay--you have to know what you want and how to get it.  The degree is a means to and end, not the final solution.

IMO the decision whether to go back to school should depend on your own circumstances.  Specifically, do you KNOW what position you need a degree for?  If you're going to go, make sure you're going for a REASON.  

Never trust anything the university tells you, especially when it comes to money.   They're less trustworthy than politicians.

J_A_B

[Kanth]

JAB,

 I felt the same way about what you said about funked's reasearch but I wasn't there and he was satisfied with the outcome to be fair so I will take that for what it's worth.

As far as anything being automatic, that would be unreasonable and I understand that, I'm talking about current events, our economy, the outsourcing to other countries of my proposed career.

 I know in the dark things look dark until the light comes but right now my point is I do see the taxes, I do see the time invested, I do see me busting my bellybutton for 4 years and I do see the lifestyle change for the worse, but what I cannot possibly see is where is this field going? will it be gone by the time I'm ready to contribute?

the best I can hope for is more choices in where i apply because some places 'require' a degree and will not take time in job in lieu, with these more choices comes the larger variety of pay rates.

I'm trying to hedge my bets with the best information I have availible to me and that includes asking people who've been on this earth longer than i have what they see in the future because I am somehwhat short sighted still.

This is my first recession as a working adult, it has had it's effect on me and so I need a longer term realistic viewpoint, or as many of them as I can get.

[funkedup]

JAB it was actually an engineering design class and we used publically available data.  "On average" our analysis was valid.  I'm sure some guys didn't do so well, but all the people I knew closely ended up doing better than the averages once we got out.  

[Leslie]

The best argument for having a college degree, is you will get the promotion...no matter what the degree is in, and no matter where you're working.  This happens when you have a degree and you're co-workers don't.  It's a valuable piece of paper.

Also, when you're 45 years old, you will be 45 with or without a degree.  I know a girl who worked at Morrison's (as a purchasing agent).  She earned her Batchelor's in Business Administration one course at a time.  Took her about ten years, but she finally got it, and now she is earning pretty good money because of the promotion.

You didn't say what you are studying Kanth, but any degree is better than none.

I've heard rumors; companies are looking for Liberal Arts graduates...the rational being they are tired of non creative employees who don't know how to think, or more properly, solve problems.  They want employees who have experience with the arts, literature, history, foreign language...as well as exposure to mathematics/logic and science.  A Liberal Arts degree is a formal, well rounded education.

Degrees in Business and Law (Law is graduate level), Engineering, Physical Education, Agriculture and Fisheries, Forestry, and many others...are more focused on a particular subject, and fall under the realm of "training."  The competition is probably intense in these fields.

If you don't already have a degree objective in mind, you may find it after taking a few courses.  When I went to college, I started out as a Psychology major, then declared a Spanish major, because it was easier for me and I just wanted to get the heck out...LOL.  Now I'm an artist/printmaker in the fine arts.  Miserable pay, but good hours.  :-)

Go to college Kanth.  You'll have the time of your life.

Les

[Moloch]

This has to be the funniest line i read in awhile!

I used the military to go to Collage.

[qts]

Here in the UK we have something called The Open University. Basically you do your degree in six years rather than three, but you do it in your spare time. Is there an equivalent in the US?

Another alternative would be for you to do a MBA.

[mrfish]

why go to school to make money? why not go to learn something you are interested in instead- there are tons of ways of make lots of money, it's too bad that's the primary focus of 99% of college students today.

jefferson tried to start a school where people went until they felt they'd learned what they needed to learn, if i remember correctly he didn't even give grades.

that's what school should be like, not "if i do x years i get y dollars" but that's the way the world is i guess.

[Animal]

Study until you cant do it anymore. Go for the Dr if possible.

I plan to study until I am about 35, then get a job that pays me enough to fill a building with coins, so that I can swim in them.